


and both shall row

by starknight



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale and Crowley Through The Ages (Good Omens), Explicit Sexual Content, First Kiss, First Time, Light Angst, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:07:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25716286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starknight/pseuds/starknight
Summary: “Who have we here?” the angel coos, and Crawley islost.A complete goner. A dimwitted rock, sinking to the bottom of a deceptively fast stream.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 124





	and both shall row

**Author's Note:**

> Written as part of the Flaming Like Anything zine - thank you so much to Rel and the other mods for all the work you put into it! Volume 2 currently has creator applications open, and it's BDSM themed, [check it out if you're interested!](https://flaminglikeanythingzine.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Enjoy 💖

The floor of Hell is damp and sticky. Moisture clings to Crawley’s belly as they slither over it, and if a snake could wince, they would. As it is, Crawley just lets out a vaguely annoyed hiss. It’s swallowed up by the angry buzzing sound emanating from a door left slightly ajar.

Curiosity never killed anyone. Did it?

“- get _creative?_ I’d love to, Luci, I really would. What planet are you living on, exactly? Half of them don’t get out of bed until afternoon, and the other half are so dumb they just sleep on the floor.”

_“There must be someone reliable you can spare.”_

The next moment, the door flies open, and Crawley peers up.

“You’ll do,” Beelzebub sighs. “Get up there.” Zie jerks zir thumb upwards, and sets off down the corridor. Crawley hisses in confusion.

Beelzebub turns around and smiles a horrible, rotten-toothed smile. “Just - make some trouble.”

Aziraphale isn’t sure why Gabriel asked _them_ to take notes, only that one moment the Archangel wasn’t there and the next they were, shoving a clay tablet and reed stylus into Aziraphale’s hand.

“ - _guards?_ Your Highest Holiness, all the Archangels are very busy with worshipping your most Esteemed Divinity.”

_“Then don’t choose an Archangel. There are more of you, if I’m not very much mistaken, and I believe I would know, for I created you.”_

Aziraphale has their tongue between their teeth as they frantically imprint the soft clay. It’s cracking as they go. They wish for a little more damp to make it pliable, but the thought is banished when they become aware of the silence hanging thick over the meeting table.

“They’ll do,” Gabriel shrugs. “You, there. Ezzera-whatever. Finish those notes, then get down there, pronto.”

Aziraphale opens their mouth, shuts it, and nods uncertainly. 

_“Stay out of trouble.”_

Aziraphale doesn’t think they’ll ever recover from the wink God gives them.

Eden is perfect.

Or at least, it should be. It would be if not for the scalding, dizzying, sweltering heat. 

Aziraphale has seen Adam and Eve bathing before, splashing in the shallows, diving into the deep. They’re - he’s - not sure if he should (he’s been growing into gender, and he thinks he could get used to it).

He looks around furtively. Once - twice - oh, to Hell with it (not _him_ , never _him_ ). No one’s looking, and the water is clear and inviting.

Aziraphale blinks his robe out of existence and splashes in. 

Much better.

Further upstream, a very foolhardy snake has badly misjudged their own weight. Crawley hears the branch they’re wrapped around snap with no warning. The water rushes up to meet them, and then there is light and dark and no more awareness of which way is up.

Until they hit something soft and warm.

Crawley is lifted up by gentle hands, their ears graced with a gentle voice.

“Who have we here?” the angel coos, and Crawley is _lost_. A complete goner. A dimwitted rock, sinking to the bottom of a deceptively fast stream.

Aziraphale doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry when he finds Crawley watching over a ragtag group of tiny humans. The ark creaks ominously, the strain of what seems like all of Heaven’s water pushing in around them. It makes Aziraphale imagine the planks giving in, water sweeping him off his feet, and the ark sinking like a lead balloon.

He starts to give the usual lecture on _ineffability_ and _divine plans_ and _causing all sorts of trouble,_ until he realizes that Crawley’s eyes aren’t yellow with anger.

No, it’s sadness dripping off her. And It runs something cold through Aziraphale. 

They argue because they must. Because Heaven cannot be allowed to get away with it, and Hell cannot be allowed to say so. Aziraphale forgets to keep his voice quiet and wakes one of the children. The boy whimpers in fright, curls up into a ball, and makes a run for it when Aziraphale moves to comfort him.

He runs right off the boat.

Crawley follows.

Aziraphale doesn’t see her for another two centuries.

“It’s called an _aqueduct,”_ Crowley says, as if he were introducing his firstborn child. “Do you like it?”

Aziraphale can’t pretend he quite understands its purpose - but it’s certainly well-crafted, and Crowley is watching him very closely. He smiles.

“Yes, yes, it’s very - er - what exactly is it for?”

Crowley rolls his eyes. “It’s to control water.”

And sure enough, as they watch, a trickle begins to seep over the rough rock, quickening into a stream. It laps at the sides, trying to escape, but always falling back into its well-defined path.

“Lovely,” Aziraphale says. “Remind me why it needs controlling?”

Crowley has never trusted ducks. They make floating look entirely too easy, which he knows from experience - it’s not. Not when you’re weighed down with sins, and love, and hope - hope that you thought might rise like a bubble, up and up and up, until you realized that up was down and truth was lies and Aziraphale was a bastard.

 _Obviously,_ Crowley mimics, because he’s pissed. Later, he’ll scream. In his head. But for now, he just eyes the ducks and makes it perfectly clear what he thinks of them.

Bastards.

A thought comes unbidden, a morbid curiosity. What would it feel like, running over his skin? Would just a drop be enough to vanquish him? Or would it only scar horribly, make sure that Aziraphale could never look the same way at him again?

Holy water is a joke. (Not as funny as the dinosaurs, though.)

It only takes a few decades for Aziraphale to go through the five stages: denial, anger, more anger, panic, and always-on-the-lookout-for-a-demon-have-you-seen-him-anywhere?

And then after an incident involving both a church and Aziraphale’s heart smashing into thousands of pieces, it’s the sixties and Soho is lit up in neon. The rain reflects the lights, like a flock of tiny bright pink birds falling from the sky.

Aziraphale clutches the thermos so tightly he fears he’ll break it, and then he won’t be able to give it, _oh no what a shame_ \- but this is what he is here for. He is here because he trusts Crowley, and Crowley has asked him for something that he can give. He can _easily_ give.

When he does give it, Crowley holds it reverently. His eyes are dulled by the bright lights behind him, but Aziraphale can see the intensity with which he looks at the holy water.

 _Look at me,_ he wants to tell him. But when Crowley asks him if he wants to _go anywhere,_ Aziraphale feels sick. The demon has gotten what he wants, and now he will return the favour. Aziraphale blurts something out and flees from the car, walking home amidst the intensifying downpour.

Humans say that holy water cannot be diluted. It’s nonsense, of course, or else Crowley would have to be very careful indeed. But still - Aziraphale turns up his face to the sky, and the rain peppers his face. He imagines that it stings. Just a bit.

When Aziraphale had gushed about the Divine Plan, he hadn’t realized it would be like this. So completely and utterly ineffable that nothing he or Crowley did seemed to make any difference, and yet too polarizing and rigid to let them out of their predefined roles.

 _I am an angel, and you are a demon,_ he says, wondering when he’d stopped talking and started making pointless noises that pretended to say things. _There is no our side._

Armageddon is the storm they’d known was coming, but it still leaves them dizzy, unable to tell right from left, up from down. Angel from demon.

(They used to do trials in water. They’d tie you to a rock and toss you in. You’d cry, salt leaking into salt, until a verdict was reached. And don’t forget: if you die, you’re innocent.)

After everything is done, the evening is quiet. It starts to rain, just lightly, but there are no lights here other than the bus drawing towards them. 

Aziraphale wonders how they became so calm so quickly. They say the sun is always there, right behind the stormclouds, but this is - too fast. Isn’t it?

He trails behind Crowley onto the bus, feeling all at sea without a mooring. And time slows down for the second time that day.

_The problem with being carried towards a waterfall is you have to time it right. Don’t try to swim against it; don’t close your eyes and entirely submit; keep the right tension, and you’ll make it through._

_The fall is inevitable._

_But the landing’s softer if you jump._

Aziraphale sees his chance, Crowley’s hand curled around a bright yellow bus-pole, and -

He jumps.

The first kiss is awkward and rocky. Crowley tries desperately to restrain himself, to lock all that yearning away. It lasts for two seconds, and neither of them opens their mouths, and when Aziraphale pulls away, Crowley sees something like disappointment.

 _Screw that,_ he thinks, and kisses Aziraphale again. Properly.

 _Oh,_ thinks Crowley. _Oh, so_ this _is what it was all about. All that fuss. All those plays. All of humanity. God, you’re a bastard._

And it doesn’t _stop,_ even when the kissing does. Aziraphale pokes out his tongue, pink and wet and holy, and licks his way down Crowley’s chest. Licks his way onto - into - something else.

Crowley lies on his bed and feels the earth move around him. It sways to and fro with the motion of his angel’s mouth, his vision wobbling and blurring when Aziraphale takes him deep. Someone is hissing in the background. 

Through the storm of it all, the tension and turmoil and release, Crowley keeps his eyes on Aziraphale, holds the angel’s hands tight in his own. It’s not really a lifeline, not when he wants so badly to plunge into the thick of it, to let go of the rope he’s been burning his hands on for six thousand years. It’s those blue eyes, leading him ever deeper, that rosy mouth, forming a perfect ‘o’ in order to - _oh._ And Crowley is lost to Aziraphale’s tide.

When Crowley comes into his mouth, Aziraphale feels dam after dam break within him. He is flooded to the brim, swallowing it all down, drinking in anything Crowley will give him. He is struck several times each second with the _realness_ of the situation, with the heat of Crowley’s skin smoothing over his.

And suddenly he knows exactly what he wants. It’s what he’s always wanted. What he was always going to want, forever.

With little more than a whisper, Crowley unfolds and opens for him, and then Aziraphale submerges himself. He would say he was lost in Crowley, except that he has never felt so profoundly found in his life. He makes love to Crowley softly at first, toes pushing against sheets for purchase, then harder as he loses control. Crowley gasps and whines and scratches at his back, always trying to fit closer against Aziraphale, the force tying them together never quite satisfied.

Well.

It feels the closest it ever has to satisfied when Aziraphale comes into Crowley with a shock, when Crowley follows him right after, when they collapse against and around each other after that. 

“Do you think we were supposed to be together?” Crowley muses, beneath the stars, wrapped securely in his angel’s arms.

Aziraphale shrugs. “It would make a lot of things make sense. Maybe.”

“But doesn’t that make it all pointless?”

Aziraphale’s eyes bore into him, and it becomes very difficult to pretend like this hasn’t been bothering him. Crowley hates Plans.

“Someone decides all of the things that are supposed to happen, and they happen. Ish. But the _point…_ Perhaps I flatter myself, but I like to think that comes from us.”

Aziraphale’s hand is warm and solid, entwined with his.

“Alright,” says Crowley, and lets himself be pulled into a wonderfully thorough kiss. Even if there isn’t a Point, he could find one for himself here. He could carve a meaning into this direction the universe has handed him. He could just be, and be with Aziraphale.

So he does.

**Author's Note:**

> [come yell at my tumblr](https://starknight-dreams.tumblr.com/)


End file.
